


Misplaced

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [57]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Corruption, Dark Hermione Granger, F/F, Female Harry Potter, Major Character Injury, Mashed up canon, Taking what I want, ignoring what I don't want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: The City is drowning in blood.Bellatrix has disappeared.Something is clawing its way out of people's hearts.And Hermione finds she cannot die.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Series: One-Shot [57]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Misplaced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisbeth00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisbeth00/gifts), [drD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drD/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Touched by the Arcane](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24230728) by [lisbeth00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisbeth00/pseuds/lisbeth00). 



> Inspired by the work linked, got it in my head and just didn't want to let it go so I wrote it for the July event.  
> Unedited except for glaring spelling errors.

Bruised knuckles were bashing against the ground, the torn flesh now leaking red into the cobblestones.

Hermione was quite sure that something had gone _wrong._

The Hunt had come to Yharnam, the Hunt was on and she had somehow found herself caught up in this Nightmare.

Now she was Hunting, following screams and red and the heady stench of something that burned her loins and curdled her stomach. The madness was neverending and succumbing to the desire was an easier task than ignoring it altogether.

But something had gone _wrong._

The Moon had turned once again from silver into Red, all the reflected light too powerful to be real. Far too massive in the sky, it peered down at her with malevolence and burdened Hermione with a sense of misplaced guilt. 

The rays were wavering as they stretched out against the angles and spires of the Cathedral, twisting shadows that irritated her the more she looked. Set her stomach - _again_ \- into turning all along its length and with great effort Hermione bit back against the surge of pungent liquid that threatened to erupt from her throat. 

She struggled onwards because that was all that she could do; all she was _allowed_ to do.

Her Cleric was still ahead of her and Hermione _knew_ it wasn’t _her_ but she also knew it was a siren call. A lilting tone of mischief and wonder that propelled her haggard form into new efforts and complications. 

Once - _long ago and back when the world might have been mad but made much more sense_ \- Hermione had wanted to join the Church. Honestly she had, but something about their cloistered ranks had reminded her of the stillborn snakes she’d found in Hemwick. They were still somewhat alive, knotted around one another and hissing faintly as they died.

They might have been born into this world to die but they could all still bite, and Hermione had learned quickly to avoid them.

_None of them were quite what they seemed._

And yet being with Bellatrix would have been worth it even when the older woman told her to leave, to escape Yharnam while she still could, pleaded with her to rent a coach and get out by summer’s end.

The Church was something that Hermione could never join with, surely that was true, but Bellatrix?

Hermione refused to leave. Acquiesced instead on the point of avoiding the Church, though that didn’t seem to include an ending to their odd relationship. If anything their dalliances increased now that they happened far away from white marble and strong incense. Now it happened in Hermione’s little home, or against the shores of the lake near Byrgenwerth. Their flame had been emboldened, the feeling of safety gained by her sudden distance to the Church had left Bellatrix feeling _free_ for the first time in who knew how long.

Whatever worry gnawed at her insides was quieted by long moments spent together, spaces of time where only the two of them existed and nothing mattered except this second and the next.

But all things soured in their end, and this was Yharnam after all. Nothing living was not spoilt, and Hermione recognised that now.

She had watched the Moon explode, seen as the sickness travelling among the lower castes had reached a bloody crescendo. She had watched friend and family alike sprout fur all over their hands, she had stared as their eyes - _blue or green or brown or red or silver_ \- turned pale and what they saw once as _friend_ turned to _monster._

What they had once seen as _family_ had now turned to _foe._

And one late night Hermione had realised that she was not immune from this insanity. 

Something cleaved her open from the inside out, tore her all apart and sent her mind scattering to the cosmos. She was left reeling and alone, only able to pick herself off of the ground and stare at all the strange additions in a puddle of what might have been blood. Both hands were cruel, thick and pointed nails stretched out to wicked daggers that cut and scratched through the soft stones that were used to line the finery of houses. A pair of gnarled and twisted bones had sprouted from her head in pale imitation to the majestic crowns that the deer wore far outside the city, back when _days_ meant _days,_ and the night could still grow short.

In her addled state she had sought Bellatrix out with calls and sprinting energy. Her echoes had diminished within the maze of homes and alleyways, stifled as they were by the meaty thud of flesh on brick as she sought to bash away her new growths and find something of her old self deep within.

She found Bellatrix, eventually.

Somehow, someway.

A beast tore her in half, a massive piston driving some sort of mechanical stake that erupted from her back and brought all the flesh along with it. But her claws were sharp and their green eyes hadn’t seen the swipe coming, even as they closed in for the finish.

Awoke, new and whole and lacking all those extra pieces of herself that had seemed _wrong_ even while some extension of them had seemed _right._

Awoke with her pulse crashing through her chest and a beautiful girl with emerald eyes staring down at her beneath a fringe of the darkest hair that Hermione had ever seen. She was familiar, hauntingly so, but _odd._

She wore a Hunter’s cap, and Hermione felt a cold chill of recognition roll down her spine. And yet the girl didn’t seem to recognize her as she was, and named herself as Harriet instead of naming Hermione as the cause of her death.

But Hermione would take what was given to her and not bite that ethereal hand.

Her other company was another woman, fully _alive_ and yet so wrong that Hermione spent an inordinate amount of time glancing across her form until she realised precisely what was what. Pale and segmented, sounding so very surprised to have Hermione appear on her doorstep.

By all the Gods this all was madness, but Hermione knew she had already lived through something that was worse. She _had_ become that beast, felt herself fall all the way down from sanity and lucidity to somewhere that could never be reached by the light of conscious thought.

She had _been_ something else. That the Doll _was_ something else was just as odd as anything else but far less worrisome all the same.

The Doll wouldn’t try to kill her and Hermione felt no desire to tear into her flesh.

Taking it in stride was the only real option, and Hermione believed she managed that well enough.

Laughing madly, interspersed throughout with sobs and weeping terror.

Harriet carried her up and into a domicile that Hermione’s mind had conveniently missed, somewhere that looked to have been built within the city but plucked from it without so much as disturbing a single splinter. It must have come from nowhere that she had ever been, Hermione knew most significant landmarks like the back of her hand and this quaint little structure was absent from her memory.

Just another oddity amid this world of madness and really, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered once yesterday became today and today was yesterday where every moment was the same except specifics, again and again until all of it blurred into an iron-rich smear of red.

Nothing mattered until Hermione finally found _her._

Found Bellatrix. Found the shell of a tortured woman locked up all alone within a bloody corner of the church in bonds of silver and white. Her body was shivering, blood pooling low from some unseen gash, and Hermione couldn’t tease a word from her at all.

But she was alive, and to Hermione that was what mattered.

A quick pull led to Hermione tugging Bellatrix along towards what she had wanted to do once all this madness had begun, but had been unable to complete. _They could escape._

And then she died.

A single shot through Hermione’s head with a quicksilver musket ball that entered slightly to the right of her temple and exited diagonally, pulling brain matter and bone along with it.

Hermione woke before the Doll with all breath stolen from her and terror blooming in her chest. She had come too far only to end where she began.

Tried it again.

Different result. A different death. This time there was blood all over her hands and knees, a consequence of the weeping gash that had been loosed along the curvature of her windpipe.

Off to the Doll again.

This time a cleaver swung down to enter into her left shoulder, exiting when it was pulled back out, back again when it ripped through the meat and muscle above her left hip, all her twisting guts spilt to the floor.

Doll.

A rusty knife through her left eye, Bellatrix screaming and moving blindly behind her.

Doll.

A vile man who burned from the inside out, lopping her in twain without a second thought.

Doll. Harriet staring at her, _peering_ at her like she’d gone mad, too confused with the situation and not making anywhere near enough sense to hold Hermione back.

_Success!_

Or something that might have been similar to it.

 _Similar_ because she could relax for now within the comforting safety of incense-filled hallways and an abandoned chapel.

 _Dissimilar_ because Bellatrix was raving now, talking about madness and eyes and all their storied Gods. Spoke like she had seen one, knew one even. Hermione could only look on and press her palms tight against her tired eyes when the spikes of sharp pain began to prickle inside her head.

 _This_ word, or _that_ name. Little human sounds that carried weight and hurt.

She somehow managed to calm Bellatrix down by the time the last candle-mark was passed. Had the older woman sleeping, even though sleep could no longer attend to Hermione.

And then the screaming started and was over before it really began, something naked and wriggling against her foot. Something that was grey and red and stained the same as Bellatrix’s robes. The floor had become coated in it and Hermione could not answer how she had somehow not seen it happen or how she still remained so calm, so maddeningly sane in the face of all the viscera.

She crushed the little quivering thing that mewled at her boot and collected the twisted cord that lay beneath it.

\---

There were moments that Hermione lacked but in the end she found herself back outside the little chapel and standing beside a lamp. The Doll greeted her when she passed through and Hermione ignored the plaintative stare, the questions left unspoken.

No matter how many attempts that Hermione made at finding Bellatrix, the woman was gone. Nowhere she had been, nowhere she hadn’t. 

Erased beneath the unceasing light of a bloody Moon that wouldn’t leave any of them alone.

Except - _and Hermione only realised this with halting steps and honest confusion_ \- she wasn’t.

She was living within Hermione’s mind, whispering into her ear with mad things and curving ideas that stretched her pale vision to its breaking point. Whispers that floated, that brought the specs within her sight to a crystal clear focus. They rolled, coalesced, seemed to form patterns if not words, _there_ and just out of reach.

But now Harriet was muttering beneath _her_ breath and coming back with gleaming smiles. Gehrman wouldn’t talk to either of them, had shut himself away and cackled when no one was around.

The Doll simply looked at them with worry in her unchanging stare, beautiful and sorrowful in a way that could no longer move Hermione’s heart.

\---

Sprinting down the world to find a pristine replica of the Dream was as much of a surprise as it was still _exactly_ what Hermione had been expecting. Nothing there made sense, so why would anything _here_ be any different?

The wandering brought her no peace and still the night raged on. It was only upon Bellatrix’s fierce urging - _and damn whatever Harriet said, Bellatrix was still alive and Hermione knew it, even if she wasn’t living in any ordinary sense of the word_ \- that she entered the cold space. There was something of a chill in the air despite the burgeoning humidity of the summer night and within its walls Hermione felt herself watched despite the lack of company.

But then she found another one of those _things_ sitting all alone and abandoned.

Harriet had seen one of them, had said she’d found it deep within a pocket after killing some _thing_ that Hermione hadn’t wanted to hear about but that the woman couldn’t help but describe. She had dropped it, forgotten it promptly and sworn off the greasy feeling of it sitting within her palm.

But Hermione didn’t care, and Bellatrix said to take it with her when she left.

So she did.

\---

Death was becoming quite preferable to Hermione.

Time wore on until eventually Harriet was avoiding all of them, sulking somewhere along the edges of Old Yharnam and attempting to hunt down a reason to their continued existence. She said that there was a reason for all this and that she had a place to be, someone to find. The Dream was her Nightmare and Hermione couldn’t help but empathise somewhat, despite the growing animosity she felt for Harriet. 

Harriet’s reason for wandering was all for herself, and Hermione swiftly found she didn’t care.

So she hunted.

It was the only time that she didn’t need to _think,_ the only time where Bellatrix would leave her alone and stop _screaming._ Somehow it worked, or perhaps she merely deluded herself into believing that. All her efforts were aimed at some sort of peace and even the peace was beginning to grow tiresome.

Perhaps that was why she ended up in Hemwick, body coated in blood and the echoing screams of witches lost within her mind. Killing things was simple, and killing snakes - _all so very much like the Church itself, or so the vagrant creature in her mind began to whisper_ \- kept her stead enough until she found herself lost, found a way back.

Iosfeka’s Clinic was still standing, or at the very least it appeared sturdy and unmolested.

Inside of its halls was a different story entirely. 

Clearly a massive amount of violence had been visited upon this place, blood coated every bit of the floor in the front room and the back rooms held something more sinister. Little creatures with too big heads and an aura that reminded Hermione of the dead had been left here to rot, run through with a cleaver and shoved all over the place. Instruments of healing - _or torture_ \- were scattered about, some of them displaying a substantial amount of use while others looked to have been placed down without ever having been touched by human hands.

What living ones she found were dispatched quickly enough with a lick of her blade or the smash of her hammer. 

The space upstairs was cleaner for the most part. Dust hadn’t settled yet, and Hermione found it empty except at a back room that had seemed to have accumulated all the grime and gore that she had expected throughout the rest of the floor.

But there was life here.

Not Iosefka, not the woman she had once known through all too brief visits and wandering glances down the main thoroughfare of Yharnam. No, this woman was different. Blonde hair of a striking and almost silver tone. Pale eyes that were bloodshot, a ring of red that stood out amid her pained face. She was _somewhat_ familiar, and Hermione avoided going nearer until she could place whoever this was within her memory.

“...Luna?” she called out, voice broken and scarred and scaring her at just how _hollow_ it sounded.

But Luna didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Simply breathed her last and left a bloody remnant on the operating table that she lay upon. 

Another _thing_ pulsed outwards from her, broken and in pain itself there was nothing more for Hermione to do except extinguish it. 

And then there was a _third_ of those things. That twisting loop, a pain inside Hermione’s mind. That curving image, a purr of delight from wherever Bellatrix resided.

\---

Hermione finally dreamed that night. Dreamed long, dreamed full. Dreamt of laying down within with comforting hold of Bellatrix, nothing between them except the dull sheen of sweat and too hot air.

Pale skin pressed tightly to her without regard for whether someone could ever find them. Only blood keeping them from being one, only viscera capable of separating them at their core. Limbs twisting and rolling, breaking once then twice then _three times then found, Hermione pressing forward and grasping bone that splintered beneath her grip,_ **_three eyes folding open to four and then seven, budding from one another until there were so very many that Hermione could see herself and she was-_ **

The world rose up. True eyes opened. 

Hermione saw Bellatrix.

Hermione saw Luna.

Hermione saw Harriet below her, eyes dull and blood pooling beneath her skull.

Hermione saw the Doll throw her a confused little smile, happy for reasons she could not name.

 _‘Why?’_ uttered Gehrman, laying upon the floor with his pretty weapon spread out before him. Hermione travelled its edge with obvious delight; the honing oils still seeping into the floorboards and a frenzied flutter to her heart.

Hermione watched as a Goddess descended from the sky in shades of black and red. She watched with faint amazement and wonder as it reached out, unfurled itself and sought to caress her cheek.

But then the damned thing _recoiled._

Burning, it twisted away and screamed for so long and so hard that Hermione could feel nothing but that raw anguish and rage.

The hammer upon her back was almost too little to win, but she won.

Won by right of power, by right of blood and might. She felt herself uplifted as she finished. Felt herself turn small, turn inwards.

Fell into insignificance punctuated only by a fading slumber, a voice whispering in her ear as Bellatrix told her things.

_“I’ll tell you who you are. A story of your life. Of who you will be.”_

The Doll caressed her far more wonderous form, Bellatrix inside her and happy for them both.

Hermione slept and dreamed anew.


End file.
